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from the voters-to-be-prosecuted-for-conspiracy-to-corrupt dept.
Steven I. Weiss writes in The Atlantic how game theory can shed light both on what is happening in Washington and on how the bargaining power of its negotiating parties may evolve over time and comes to the conclusion that hypocrisy is essential to the functioning of Congress - in fact it's the only tool legislators have after they've rooted out real corruption. "Legislators do not pay each other for votes, and every member of a parliament in a democratic society is legally equal to every member," writes Congressman Barney Frank in his new memoir, Frank: A Life in Politics From the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage. For legislators, cooperation is a form of political currency. They act in concert with other legislators, even at the expense of their own beliefs, in order to bank capital or settle accounts: "Because parliamentary bodies have to arrive at binding decisions on the full range of human activity in an atmosphere lacking the structure provided by either money or hierarchy, members have to find ways to bring some order out of what could be chaos," writes Frank. So trading votes, also known as logrolling, is how the business of politics is conducted. "Once you have promised another member that you will do something—vote a certain way, sponsor a particular bill, or conduct a hearing—you are committed to do it." According to Frank legislators have to act in ideologically inconsistent ways in the short run if they want to advance their larger objectives in the long run, as those larger objectives can only be achieved with teamwork. And the other members of their legislative team are only going to play ball with them if they know that they'll take one for the team, that they'll vote for something they don't like because the team needs it.
Game theory sets out conditions under which negotiating parties end up cooperating, and why they sometimes fail to do so. It does so based on analyzing what drives individuals in the majority of bargaining situations: incentives, access to information, initial power conditions, the extent of mutual trust, and accountability enforcement. Instead of seeing political flip-flopping as a necessary evil, Frank suggests it is inherent to democracy and according to Frank if there's any blame to be doled out in connection with political hypocrisy, it's to be placed on the heads of voters who criticize legislators for it, instead of accepting it as a necessary part of democratic politics. "Legislators who accommodate voter sentiment are denounced as cowardly, and those who defy it are just as fiercely accused of rejecting democratic norms," writes Frank. "I will run for office and I will tell you what I think, and then I will go ahead and do what I think right, and if you don't like what I'm doing, then you can kick me out."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @07:23AM
That's what it is.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Monday July 13 2015, @07:28AM
I always thought that hypocrisy was simply a subset of a larger corruption. Stated policy is a tacit agreement with the voters: "Vote for me and I will act this way". When the politician breaks that agreement, he or she clearly signals that they no longer care about the voters' desires and is instead acting in their own self-interest.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday July 13 2015, @12:38PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tramii on Monday July 13 2015, @03:35PM
Then maybe don't promise X and Y if you can't deliver X and Y.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:13AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday July 14 2015, @04:04PM
If you don't promise things that you're not 100% sure that you'll achieve, then you can't promise anything.
I can promise to not cheat on my wife. I cannot promise we will never get divorced. I can promise to do my best to protect my children. I cannot promise that no harm will ever come to them.
There are certain things you can guarantee and certain things you cannot. You should not make guarantees about things you have no control over. Instead of saying things like "If elected I will change X" you should instead say "If elected I will work hard to change X by doing the following things..." Then you can list the prerequisites that are necessary for that change. Maybe you will draft a bill or maybe you will promise to vote a certain way. But *stop* saying you will do X when you can't guarantee to do X.
Shame on them for lying to us and shame on us for not holding them accountable for their lies.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 14 2015, @04:12PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @12:46PM
Not necessarily. Is being honest with your children except in cases where the truth would be traumatic acting in your own self-interest or being a good parent?
It could be that many politicians are not acting in self-interest through hypocrisy. They could care for their constituents but simply look down on them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @05:34PM
Most of the time, in fact almost all of the time, politicians hide things from the public it's either to avoid embarrassment or it's for some other self serving purpose. Take, for example, the secretive meetings between politicians and industry interests. I suppose one could argue that the truth behind these secretive agreements and how self serving they are is so traumatic that they would rather keep it away from the public. The truth behind how corrupt government is and how bought and paid for politicians and regulators are is so traumatic it's best to just keep it secret. If the truth is really that traumatic that's even more reason the public should know about it and any attempts to hide it are only self serving.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday July 13 2015, @08:06AM
You say: "Rationalization of hypocrisy and sociopathy". Somebody explained it better about 150 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by theluggage on Monday July 13 2015, @09:05AM
You missed one:
“To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
―
Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 13 2015, @11:17AM
You know what? Keep election for the legislative but replace the nomination of executives by a random choice.
Greeks had done so some time in the past [wikipedia.org] ... and today they've been granted the bailout, so... maybe it works?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Niggle on Monday July 13 2015, @01:12PM
To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
-Also Douglas Adams
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @05:17PM
"Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made."
---
John Godfrey Saxe, The Daily Cleveland Herald, Mar. 29, 1869
This is worth a rebuttal -- here is my one data point:
A few years ago I went on a tour of a small sausage plant. Our small group had lunch before and several ordered sausages--commenting that this might be the last time to enjoy one (before seeing how they were made).
The plant was spotless. Among other things, they only accept meat into the plant that has already been separated from bone, the bones are often the source of bacterial infection. From talking to the workers (who all seemed friendly and open), it certainly looked like management was doing the right things for quality of product. While the work environment is moderately hostile--most of the employees have to work in rooms chilled to just above freezing--there was regular break time to get warmed back up.
After the 2 hour tour, we all agreed that we would have no problem eating anything that was packaged in that sausage and meat processing factory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @10:39AM
I'm sure that is also the case with your average plant and that the prices of this factory are surely reasonable...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @09:38PM
and representative democracy is, in some cases, a poor rationalization against a more direct democracy.
Perhaps we should elect politicians to introduce bills to the public to be voted on by the public. The burden shouldn't be on the public to get a new bill directly through via starting a petition and signing up so many people the burden should be on the politician to get any bill they want through via introducing it to the public and getting a minimal number of people to come vote on it. If, say, more than ten percent (or whatever) of the voting population comes and votes and a majority votes in favor of a bill then it should pass. If not even ten percent of the voting population can't be bothered to attend to vote on a bill then the bill is obviously not important enough to the public for consideration.
For immediate, short term, needs perhaps a solution is that we can elect a body of representatives that can pass a temporary bill. The bill can optionally be set to expire in a year or so. Within that time the representatives can then rally the population to vote on the bill directly. If a substantial quantity of voters show up and vote (both must occur) then the bill can continue on. If not then it's not that important and it should automatically be negated.
Every five or ten years after a bill does get passed by the population as a whole it should then go up to be voted on again by the population as a whole. Since the bill is already in effect it shouldn't require a minimal threshold of voters to be accepted for continuation. Continuation should be the default. However if a minimal amount of people (say ten percent) show up and it gets a two thirds majority denial rate then the bill should be rejected. If a higher minimal amount of voters show up (say twenty percent) and it only gets a 50 percent rejection majority then it should be rejected. The model should generally follow a statistical model. If we can statistically show that about 60 percent of the population, with high confidence (80% or more) no longer wants this bill to stay in effect then it should no longer stay in effect. Granted there is the fact that those that show up to vote may hold a bias but those that didn't show up are probably not that determined to keep the bill in effect, they had the same opportunity as everyone else to show up and vote and if enough people that care about an issue enough to show up to vote on it do show up such that they can skew the statistics as a whole against those that are too apathetic to show up then perhaps the determination of those that show up should be heard, and no statistical model is going to be perfect. A bill already in effect being voted on should reflect a reasonably high degree of probability that the population as a whole shares the same rejection sentiment to thwart any bias in who shows up.
In this way any immediate pressing matters, like disaster relief or whatever or immediate threats, can be dealt with quickly. Any long term bills that the population as a whole feels is important enough to get through will get through in the long term. Any long term bills that a future population strongly feels is no longer needed can easily be rejected.
Granted the corrupt ruling class and corporations that are against a more direct democracy will naturally point to potential flaws in such a system. It's not a perfect system. But it's a whole lot better than what we have now, a system that is purely bought and paid for by those same corporations that are against direct democracy. and yes, such a system will make it more difficult for certain bills to get passed. Big corporations will complain about this. Bought politicians will complain about this. How is any bill (that they want) going to ever get passed. It's the same exact argument that they use to engage in secretive meetings with politicians. If the public got involved these bills will be harder to pass. But under a direct democracy, just like under a more transparent negotiating system, bills will get passed (and bills have been passed transparently) just not the bills that big corporations want. Which is exactly the point. Attempts to rationalize away a much more direct approach to democracy are just attempts to ensure that corporations write the laws. The whole point of having a person or group of people write laws is so that a small group of interests can undemocratically dictate the laws disproportionately against what the public wants. Voting for representatives often doesn't matter since politicians can just change their minds afterwards without repercussions. Politicians know this and corporations know this which is why they push for such centralized systems of power. We need a more direct approach to democracy. Let those who want a bill passed convince the public that it should be passed more directly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @09:48PM
Rationalizations against direct democracy are just an attempt to rationalize imposing a law against me that I would never vote in favor of without giving me the opportunity to vote for said law myself. Period.
Politicians lie about what they will do when running for office and they vote for laws they never mentioned during elections.
If I didn't directly have an opportunity to vote for the laws that I'm being subject to that's oppression, not democracy, and the government has no moral right whatsoever to enforce those laws on me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @12:25AM
The problem with direct democracy is that its nothing more than mob rule. There must be legal protections for the minority groups, to keep the majority from tyrannically oppressing them. I can already guess that anyone who disagrees with that is part of the majority, and most likely a sociopath to boot. Just keep in mind, if the US were a direct democracy, it would be extremely easy to repeal the first amendment and change the US into a Christian Theocracy, or repeal the fourth, fifth, and similar amendments and change the US into an openly-admitted police state rather than the 'secretive' one it is now where the majority don't realize it already is one; and those are just the most obvious example of why the majority should not have unlimited power to do whatever the fuck they want.